Difficulty, death penalty, overleveling.

[illinar]

EDIT: I'm playing HC now.

EDIT: Died on the Act 3 boss. I'm not doing this mindless grind again

EDIT: "First 26 hours of the game are tutorial" Thanks, that's exactly the problem. Please let me know when they add difficulty levels so I can play a real game.

EDIT: Playing on No Lube private league, it still has infinite grind and overleveling, but at least it's not a "tutorial"

As usual I find another game that I would really enjoy if it had slightly different difficulty and progression mechanics.

There is no suggestion thread that might indicate that devs don't listen to players too much, but anyway, I more curious if there are players like me.

I would love this game if I could choose a harder difficulty with some death penalties and no possibility of easy and boring grind.

1) Death penalty. Currently no penalty for first 5 acts? This takes away all the challenge for me, I don't want to play. Hardcore is not a good option for most players. I suggest an optional mode with bigger penalties but higher XP rewards (no rewards would do, but I don't see a reason not to reward players here).

2) No easy grind and overleveling. There is NO WAY they ever gonna implement this, but still. Currently you can farm infinite XP on any easy mobs. Again, takes away the challenge, ruins fun for me. So I would strongly prefer XP per quest, per cleared zone, or with XP limit per zone.

Most people here on the forum probably like it the way it is, that's why they are playing it and visiting the forum, but I wonder how many wish the game had options I described.

EDIT: Just realized that those two features create an XP defecit if player dies and looses XP and the XP is fixed per quest. So there could be additional basic quests to let player get back their lost XP. Those can be boring and repetetive. They are a death punishment as well.

Infact the death punishment could be breaking out of "hell" to get back to life. I actually really like that idea.

[Astasia]

There is no penalty for the first 5 acts, then there's a 5% penalty for the next 5, then a 10% penalty after you finish the story. The game doesn't really begin for most players until they finish the story, that's when you get into mapping, dying is a big deal later on and can set you back hours. The campaign is basically the tutorial stage, you get a little bit of time to figure out your build and how it works before you start getting penalized.

Level doesn't mean much, that's not where the grind is, but trying to hit level 100 killing "easy mobs" isn't going to happen as you not only need a ton of exp which weak enemies do no provide, but you get a penalty for killing stuff too far below your level.

[Maximy]

1. After act 5 you lose 5% per death, after act 10 you lose 10% per death. 10% might not be much at lower levels, but dude after you hit level 95+ those 10% is actually A LOT,hence why I always stop around 95lvl.

2. This is false. Please reach 90+ level and try to farm "Easy" mobs and see how much exp you will be getting by doing tier 1-2 maps (Around 70lvl enemies), maybe 0,1% per map? That's gonna take you forever to level up. That's why players often pay their fees and do breach stones, or beachhead maps (These are designed to get as much EXP as you can get for lowest amount of time spent farming).

I personally think the game is well designed. It gets harder and harder level after level, so you're "forced" to play higher tier maps, also current atlas (end game) also require you to run higher tier after tier, face stronger bosses. Have you seen Sirius fight? If that's not a challenge I dont know what is.

[illinar]

Publicado originalmente por Astasia:

There is no penalty for the first 5 acts, then there's a 5% penalty for the next 5, then a 10% penalty after you finish the story. The game doesn't really begin for most players until they finish the story, that's when you get into mapping, dying is a big deal later on and can set you back hours. The campaign is basically the tutorial stage, you get a little bit of time to figure out your build and how it works before you start getting penalized.

Level doesn't mean much, that's not where the grind is, but trying to hit level 100 killing "easy mobs" isn't going to happen as you not only need a ton of exp which weak enemies do no provide, but you get a penalty for killing stuff too far below your level.

Yeah I know about the penalty. Good point about leveling on later levels.

So the early game is flawed in terms of game design. Inconsequential death is a terrible choice in my opinion. Infinite easy XP is something I personally never been a fan of in any game, because it's an option that says "hey you don't need to be good, just stay here and click more" or "you are not good, you just log off often and redo the same easy levels, so you have more XP and items, and easier time than you otherwise would".

That's a bad resource economy (XP is a resource, life is a resource) that takes away from value of success and the feeling of success.

Infinite lives, infinite XP = inflaion or devaluing. Game design is all about giving value to things.

[illinar]

Publicado originalmente por Maximy:

1. After act 5 you lose 5% per death, after act 10 you lose 10% per death. 10% might not be much at lower levels, but dude after you hit level 95+ those 10% is actually A LOT,hence why I always stop around 95lvl.

2. This is false. Please reach 90+ level and try to farm "Easy" mobs and see how much exp you will be getting by doing tier 1-2 maps (Around 70lvl enemies), maybe 0,1% per map? That's gonna take you forever to level up. That's why players often pay their fees and do breach stones, or beachhead maps (These are designed to get as much EXP as you can get for lowest amount of time spent farming).

I personally think the game is well designed. It gets harder and harder level after level, so you're "forced" to play higher tier maps, also current atlas (end game) also require you to run higher tier after tier, face stronger bosses. Have you seen Sirius fight? If that's not a challenge I dont know what is.

Do I have to play 90 levels before the game becomes challenging and gives value to choosing challenging content?

How long are the first 5 acts?

What are XP proportions in Act 6 between "easy grind XP" and completing quest (beating bosses).

Sorry, one more question to all: is healing also infinite? Can you portal to town to refill or how does that work?

[illinar]

I also heard that unfortunately the existing death penalty system combined with that infinite XP system create a situation where player is discouraged from trying challenging content, because of risk of dying. But that might not be that bad, because player still has a choice to take on the challenge, and that's the choice I want to be able to make and hopefully not after 20-40 hours put into the easy-grindy-zergy early game. The existence of easy option though still devalues the hard option because as a player ultimately your goal is to be most efficient.

(I don't expect that very many players will relate to that mindset, but I've seen some that do)

[Maximy]

Publicado originalmente por illinar:

Do I have to play 90 levels before the game becomes challenging and gives value to choosing challenging content?

How long are the first 5 acts?

What are XP proportions in Act 6 between "easy grind XP" and completing quest (beating bosses).

Sorry, one more question to all: is healing also infinite? Can you portal to town to refill or how does that work?

I was just giving you example. After you beat 10 acts (Story mode), your next steps are maps. You can make Maps as challenging as you want. The harder the map, more quantity = more rewards. Of course you will be one shotting everything if you play low tier map with 90+ level character, but lets say you're around 70lvl and make +100% quantity tier 1-2 map, you will definitely have some challenge. Enemies get more damage, more dmg ressistances and stuff like that.

Acts depends on your personal speed, but for average player to finish all 10 acts might take 8-12 hours (with a little bit of grinding here and there). Healing can be done trough two ways : Leeaching (Life steal abilities) - or Flasks. You reacharge flasks by killing enemies or when you teleport to your hideout/town. If you don't kill anything or don't port back your flasks with remain empty.

[illinar]

"You reacharge flasks by killing enemies or when you teleport to your hideout/town. "

Sorry I don't mean to just be complaining, not sure if that's what I do, but here I am disappointed again. There is infinite healing in the game then. Would be cool if you would enter a dungeon and the only way you would survive is if you avoid damage well knowing that you have a finite supply of healing, or if you have invested in shields or life steal abilities. But in reality at any moment you can use a cheap portal scroll and get a full refill.

That's just what it seems like to me, idk how good or important different healing options are.

Alringht, thank you guys for the information. I will consider playing further I really like the feel of the game and build-making aspect, I wish there was an alternative difficulty and progression setting.

[Rikkore]

A1-10 is like 5 hours if you know what you're doing 2-3 if you're speed running.

The campaign is just there to ease you in the mechanics.

During these parts it's hard to die unless you dont pay attention to your defenses.

The xp penalty gets brutal 95+ onwards. Plus the challenge is self imposed. You dont just make a character with no goal in mind. Usually people make a character for specific reasons 100, bossing, delving, lab runner, infinite mapping to hoard currency.

[illinar]

Publicado originalmente por Rikkore:

A1-10 is like 5 hours if you know what you're doing 2-3 if you're speed running.

The campaign is just there to ease you in the mechanics.

During these parts it's hard to die unless you dont pay attention to your defenses.

The xp penalty gets brutal 95+ onwards. Plus the challenge is self imposed. You dont just make a character with no goal in mind. Usually people make a character for specific reasons 100, bossing, delving, lab runner, infinite mapping to hoard currency.

The goal is an important point. The way I play almost any game my goal is to choose a sufficiently hard challenge and successfully progress though it. In RPG to create a good strong build and use it well. SO... This means I need metrics or feedback on progression through those goals.

I need a metric of how good my build is and how well I'm using it. What gives me that feedback?

1) The game makes it clear that my success is not because of factors like excessive XP due to repeating content, not due to being overleveled. When it says: this is the challenge for your level and your gear and it is supposed to be difficult, and you are killing it or doing bad at it. (At least if grind makes it easier, it should be because you used all available FINITE resources and farmed more XP. When XP farm is unlimited, this doesnt work.)
2) When I don't have an option to make challenge easier. So if there is a preset challenge for preset level, it's good, but if I can go get a few more levels to make it easier it is bad! It makes challenge feel more pointless.
3) When resources are also preset for the challenge. Fighting a boss, clearing a dungeon? There should not be an option to tap out at any moment as much times as you want to refill and restock.

All three are variations of one thing. Establishing the clear fixed difficulty of a challenge, and giving me fixed (finite) resources to attempt to overcome it. Only then I have clear goal and clear feedback on progression towards it.

[Astasia]

It's like one of those games where you start at level 1 and walk up and hit the first enemy and gain 2 levels, because the game wants to teach you about skill points or whatever, nobody complains those 2 levels are too easy because that's not the game. There is no exp economy there, if you somehow self-destruct and die in some ridiculously unfortunate accident you aren't punished, it's the learning stage of the game. Rikkore isn't exaggerating, finishing act 10 is done by some players in under 2.5 hours, finishing the late game content takes several hundred hours of playing by those same people, that should put into perspective where you stand in the game right now at act 5. By the time you finish act 10 you should have a little better understanding of the basic game mechanics, where the difficulty and challenge in the game lean, and how useful your "infinite healing" is.

[Enheldor]

My first league playing, I wasn't using any of my flasks because I thought they were limited use like in FATE, lmao.

But one thing you're not taking into account with your difficulty increases is just how much RNG plays a part in this game. I don't do hard content because it's too hard or I'm too scared; I don't do it because I can't get the gear my build needs to drop or I can't get the items to do the content to drop or I can't get enough currency to afford to buy the gear or content items (I never got to the shaper or uber elder, any of the syndicate stuff, uber atziri, fishing, the breach stuff, any delve bosses).

[illinar]

I'm at the act one, 3 zones deep. At my first I spawned an annoying fire spamming Metamorph (so it's an event, not a standart content apparently) and I died to it. Realized that I just respawn with no penalty and there is no reason to actually deal with that enemy (lots of running around dodging fire with my ranger) and I can just respawn, shoot, die, repeat. Which I did, and immediately felt joy sucked out of the game along with the sense of challenge.

[Rikkore]

Publicado originalmente por illinar:

I'm at the act one, 3 zones deep. At my first I spawned an annoying fire spamming Metamorph (so it's an event, not a standart content apparently) and I died to it. Realized that I just respawn with no penalty and there is no reason to actually deal with that enemy (lots of running around dodging fire with my ranger) and I can just respawn, shoot, die, repeat. Which I did, and immediately felt joy sucked out of the game along with the sense of challenge.

That's like the very first area after lioneyes lol. I'm gonna tell you right now the first 10 acts are pretty easy and you can do stuff like that. When you reach maps you're limited to 5 portals until that map is gone.

If you cant stand SC but dont want to play HC this isnt the genre for you. No arpg will satisfy your wants unless you just play hc

[davidb11]

You're not making sense, OP, this game is not magically easy, with all the stuff in it.
Claiming it's an easy game is extremely insulting, especially after the major boss upgrades.


Have you ever played an ARPG before?
It's like you don't understand the point of this type of game.

[D K]

Publicado originalmente por illinar:

As usual I find another game that I would really enjoy if it had slightly different difficulty and progression mechanics.

There is no suggestion thread that might indicate that devs don't listen to players too much, but anyway, I more curious if there are players like me.

I would love this game if I could choose a harder difficulty with some death penalties and no possibility of easy and boring grind.

1) Death penalty. Currently no penalty for first 5 acts? This takes away all the challenge for me, I don't want to play. Hardcore is not a good option for most players. I suggest an optional mode with bigger penalties but higher XP rewards (no rewards would do, but I don't see a reason not to reward players here).

2) No grind. There is NO WAY they ever gonna implement this, but still. Currently you can farm infinite XP on any easy mobs. Again, takes away the challenge, ruins all fun for me. So I would strongly prefer XP per quest, per cleared zone, or with XP limit per zone.

Most people here on the forum probably like it the way it is, that's why they are playing it and visiting the forum, but I wonder how many wish the game had options I described.

EDIT: Just realized that those two features create an XP defecit if player dies and looses XP and the XP is fixed per quest. So there could be additional basic quests to let player get back their lost XP. Those can be boring and repetetive. They are a death punishment as well.

Infact the death punishment could be breaking out of "hell" to get back to life. I actually really like that idea.

All of these complaints don't matter after about 4 hours of gameplay. Level isn't the focus of this game. It's all about build progression, gear, and the many endgame expansions that PoE has to offer. Way more content than anyone has time for, especially with leagues constantly adding content and encouraging starting fresh for benefits.

Trust me, if difficulty is an option, you can push it infinitely.